Spoiler alert: The two dozen hospital CEOs, employers, consumer advocates, community experts, brokers and insurance company representatives who attended the Humana-sponsored Denver Health Economy Simulator workshop Feb. 3-4 neither solved Colorado’s health care crisis nor produced a national plan for comprehensive change.
So what did they accomplish? They talked with one another, building new rapport and laying the groundwork for future collaboration. And while that may seem like a trivial achievement, collaborative conversation at the local level is critical to accomplishing any systemic change in health care.
Divided into teams and charged with building health care systems for four fictitious counties, each participant assumed an unaccustomed role — the doctor became the mayor, the insurance provider became the employer and so on.
Then for two days, these professionals from various sectors of the health economy immersed themselves in competition with the aid of an elaborate computer-based simulator.
When they changed the way employers offered benefits, the simulator rolled the numbers and showed how that single action affected everything from hospital profitability to population growth and business recruitment.
Ditto when they plugged in an insurance profit expectation, raised taxes or hired more nurses. They also discovered how even small investments in health promotion translated into future cost savings.
As the hours passed, old barriers began to fall and a new understanding of the system’s complexities emerged. By the end of day two each team had created a three-year plan that cut costs, increased preventive care, covered just about everyone and enhanced revenue.
And armed with information and new relationships, these local health leaders are now in a position to place themselves at the forefront of thoughtful, incremental change with less focus on the parts and more on the sum.
The lesson? When all sides of the health care discussion understand how individual decisions and actions affect the whole system, it’s easier for each to make choices that foster positive change.
That means when a hospital administrator makes a choice on construction, he or she will at least consider how it will affect consumer satisfaction and the viability of community government and businesses.
The same thought process needs to occur when an insurance company sets reimbursement levels for certain procedures or coverage options. And all of the players reap the benefits of investing in preventive and wellness promotion programs that raise community health status.
The lack of a workable health care system is a national problem with a local solution, and we believe improvement will take the efforts of the entire community. It can only be accomplished by setting reasonable costs for employers, taxpayers and consumers, encouraging a healthier and more engaged populace, and shaping a more robust local economy.
Compromise toward a common goal may be the biggest challenge to change at any level. Trust levels are low among those who make up today’s health care marketplace.
Yet the Denver Health Economy Simulator offered a glimpse of the possibilities, a baby step toward sustainable improvement with the consumer at the heart of the discussion.
This event, piloted in Colorado, is the first of its kind sponsored by Humana. Plans for similar events this year in other regions of the country are in progress as health care reform moves to the top of state and national agendas.
In the end, the team members who crafted a system in fictional “Paradise County” won the competition and took home the first place trophies. But the people of Colorado stand to reap real rewards as the conversation continues and grows.
Dan Oftedahl, President of Humana of Colorado, is responsible for the overall management and strategic planning for Humana’s commercial, consumer-choice and self-insured health-benefit products in Colorado. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
